


In Our Bedroom After The War

by heaven_liqhts



Category: Wings of Fire - Tui T. Sutherland
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - No Jade Mountain Academy / No Arc 2, Angst, Anxiety, Blind Character, Clay is only mentioned, In Our Bedroom After The War Songfic, Major character death - Freeform, Not Canon Compliant, OOC, Past/referenced character death, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-War, Recovery, Songfic, Starflight has stagefright & social anxiety, Starspeaker is ambiguous and kinda platonic, anger issues, its not a shipfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-17
Updated: 2018-07-17
Packaged: 2019-06-12 02:44:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15330006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heaven_liqhts/pseuds/heaven_liqhts
Summary: Songfic ofthis song.This is an AU universe and some characters are portrayed as partially or completely out of character (OOC warning). read tags for other warnings.





	In Our Bedroom After The War

_Wake up, say good morning to_  
  
 _Glory rolled over in her sleep, jerking awake when her snout hit something hard and warm. She jolted upright just to see Clay, smiling up at her from his scroll. He looked tired.  
"You looked cold," he said softly, "So I came and laid down next to you. I didn't mean to wake you up." Glory, despite herself, rolled her eyes and smiled at him.   
  
_ _That sleepy person lying next to you_  
  
  The RainWing jolted awake, cold sweat dripping off her scales and onto the hammock where she was curled up. Sunlight shafted through the leaves and onto her roiling scales as she panted, winded from how real, how painfully, heart-tuggingly  _real_ the dream had been. She inhaled. Exhaled. Gray and green and black tumbled across her scales like a cloud of smoke. Toxic. Engulfing. Making it hard to breathe. Hard to think.  
  She laid back in the hammock and sighed.  
  
 _If there's no one there then there's no one there_  
  
 _It was a nice dream,_ she reasoned  _a nice memory. You're allowed to have those still.  
_   But nice memories wouldn't bring Clay back. Remembering the great, lumbering, tooth-rottingly sweet MudWing would only make the loss worse. But, no matter how hard she tried, he haunted her like a phantom pain. As if she had lost some vital part of herself and her body kept trying to convince her it was there. As if that would help her keep living.  
  
 _But at least the war is over_  
  
  She heaved herself out of the hammock, tears and sweat falling from her face as she caught her breath. Gliding on smooth, undisturbed wings the colour of the sunset she landed on her pavilion. And hesitated. And, looking out at her kingdom, black and pink and orange and green altogether, all moving, all thriving...she missed Clay. Missed his positivity. His love of the Rainforest and all it's fruit. His acceptance. His advice.  
  The war was over, and she had a kingdom to run without her best friend to guide her. Without her brother.  
And if any of them had deserved the peace of lying in the sun, it was Clay.  
  
 _It's us, yes, we're back again_  
  
  Starflight took a deep breath, claws worrying the expensive wooden flooring. The cotton over his eyes was scratchy, felt like too much stimulation on his scars. It was all too much. He couldn't talk in front of a crowd! Whoever thought he could had done something ridiculous like believe in him. And, in his experience, that hadn't ended well.  
  But, nonetheless, he looked at Fatespeaker next to him and smiled a weak, I'm-about-to-throw-up smile. And she smiled back. Reassuringly. And before he knew it he was out on stage, saying the words he'd memorized. About his caretakers. About his injuries. About his recovery. About his loss. And, what he thought was most important, the story of what really happened the night Clay died.  
  
 _Here to see you through 'til the day's end  
_  
  He staggered off stage, feeling faint, and fell into Fatespeaker's arms.  
  "You did  _so_ well, Starflight," she praised softly, stroking his back gently. "You did so well. You were incredible."  
  And those words. Those  _damn_ words. They were just like Clay, something he would say. Something sappy. Uplifting. And he was too tired, too proud, too wrung out to care, so he cried to Fatespeaker and let her hold him for awhile.  
  
 _And if the night comes and the night will come_  
  
  It was late, and Starflight wasn't sleeping. He was thinking. Remembering.  
  When he lost his vision, everything went a little foggy. But, clear as day, he remembered Clay's soft, boxy face. His big brown Ox eyes. His goofy, I'm-not-that-smart smile.  
  Starflight was wishing, too. He was usually logical and present and not one doing silly things like wishing; however, there are some things logic can't reason out. Like the logic of his last words to his brother being, "Fireproof scales" as he waited to hear cries of relief and joy, waited to stop hearing sizzling flesh, waited for Clay to relax...but it didn't.    He didn't. Or, the logic of his not even being able to give a eulogy at Clay's funeral. Not being able to choke a single word out. The logic of the only dragon who could touch him, the only dragon who could make him believe he was worthwhile being gone. Leaving him alone.  
 _  
Well at least the war is over_  
  
  And so he wished. Wished his last words to his brother hadn't been so naive, so hopeful. Wished he had the confidence to say his goodbyes. Wished he wasn't so consumed with himself.  
  Wished for his brother back. That was most of the wishing.  
  But he finally drifted into fitful, tossing and turning sleep. Sleep with fuzzy visions of things he'd never seen, hoped he would never have to. Sleep with the sharp smell of cooking dragon. The awful toxic odor of vaporized venom. The shouting, the chaos, the dragons beside him heaving down on the MudWing.  
  He didn't sleep well that night. He hadn't since the war ended.  
 _  
_ _Gridlock on the parkway now_  
   
  Tsunami massaged her head, a headache pounding away at her skull and she listened to the nobles whining about their supplies of seaweed. Seaweed, of all things! There were beaches covered with the stuff, and still, they fought about proper cultivation and growth rates and light and temperature and-  
  Maybe shouting at the council of dragons half in charge of your kingdom wasn't the smartest move, but as Tsunami swam away, she really didn't think she could care any less.  
  
 _The television man is here to show you how_  
  
  As she steamed in the throne room, she let off some energy by whipping her tail back and forth in the water. She  _knew_ why today was so off. She knew why she was so short.    She just didn't want to think about it. Didn't even want to say that  _name.  
_   She swam down the palace halls with no clear direction, just swift jerks of her wings to turn corners and a blinding anger frothing like sea foam in her vision. She was tired.      She was angry. She shouldn't have been wandering the halls, looking to pick a fight, but-  
  "Oh! Oh dearie me, I'm so sorry, my queen-" she had bumped into a Palace Maid who was carrying a tray of rocks that made the water around them bubble and boil, her lashing tail knocking them all off. She reached down to pick them up and stack them on the tray again.  
 _Clay would want you to help her.  
_   Tsunami could have screamed. That name was the absolute last thing she wanted to think about today. but nonetheless, she reached down and helped the maid pick up the (now cooled) hot rocks, much to the other SeaWing's shock.  
  "T-thank you, milady! Thank you so muc-" Tsunami gave a curt nod to her and swam away. Maybe  _he_ would have wanted her to be polite too, but she didn't want to think about that now. Ever.  
  
 _The channel fades to snow, it's off to work you go_  
  
  She felt like she was drowning. Which was ironic, considering she had her meltdown underwater. But, as she threw sealed inkpots and swept waterproof papers and gull-feather quills off her desk, she reflected on how throwing a fit underwater had a lot less satisfying smashing and mess.  
  So she swam towards the surface, tail lashing to propel her, wings spread to catch the currents towards the Summer Palace Reconstruction. And she  _thought.  
_   Perhaps it was okay to think of him. To remember that night, five years ago, when she watched her best friend, her brother, die right beneath her while she pinned him down.    To think about the friends, the siblings, she had barely spoken to since the funeral. And maybe it was alright to mourn him. To grieve instead of bottling it all up.  
  But Tsunami wasn't too good with emotions, even after all these years. So she latched onto the comfort that anger was at least one stage of grief as she broke the surface, and turned to face the new Summer Palace.  
  
 _But at least the war is over_  
  
  Immediately, she was overcome by how beautiful everything looked. The stars on the water. The massive, glorious marble-limestone palace. The greenery overtop of it, the hundreds of SeaWings milling around it, speaking aquatic.  
  And the other tribes, too. The Summer Palace had since become a hub of trade between the sea-dwellers and the land folk, and reds and yellows flashed among the bright cerulean and deep indigo.  
  And it hit her. This was what he wanted. This was what he'd been fighting for that whole damn time-what he'd  _died_ for. This was the future Clay saw that night. Dragons, together, making something beautiful on a beautiful night. Tsunami floated towards the palace,  _her_ palace, utterly dumbstruck by the volume. She hadn't seen the palace from the outside in months. She hadn't seen this many different tribes together since that night.  
  Maybe it was alright to cry, sometimes, too. Cry over pain. Over beauty. The sea would take her tears, she realized, no matter how much she cried. Because sometimes you just had to let go.  
  
 _Lift your head and look out the window_  
  
  Sunny breathed deeply, looking out the windows of the SandWing palace. The dunes rose and fell, framed against blue. Overhead tiny red and gold and tan shapes flitted like insects, occasionally accented by a smear of dark gray or a flash of blue. Gorgeous. She thought it was so pretty it should be a painting, all those dragons getting along and flying next to one another. Or a poem.   
  
 _Stay that way for the rest of the day and watch the time go_  
  
  She spent the rest of the day outside, walking and chatting. Newcomers to the palace. The maids. The librarian. She visited the message room, the dragons wading through scrolls and scrolls of undelivered messages, sorting. She visited the courtyards. Her mother. But, eventually, the dragon she ended up speaking to longest was the one who found her himself, on purpose.  
  "Hello, Princess." Six-Claws bowed, smirking up at her, and she laughed, swatting him with her tail.   
  "Hello, good sir. Pleasure to see you this evening," she mocked his fake-poshness as she walked towards the garden. "What brings you visiting today, sire?"  
  "Figured you might want some company today," Six-Claws followed her into the last courtyard, full of new growth and heavy with the perfume of flowers. Sunny didn't meet his eyes, but busied herself with one of the newer trees in the garden.  
  
 _Listen, the birds sing, listen, the bells ring_  
  
  They sat in the quiet. Sunny thought it was peaceful, just watching the flowers and smelling all the plants. A faint scent of rolls hit her from the castle kitchens. She wasn't hungry, but they smelled divine.   
  She could only play the waiting game so long, though. She knew Six-Claws was waiting for her to speak. "I figured, uh. I figured he'd want it this way, y'know?" She didn't anticipate that she'd get so nasally so quickly, turning her head to fake interest in a beetle on the ground. "He always liked it outside, liked the sky, the plants. We, uh, we didn't get any of that growing up in our cave. So when he got out-I mean, when we all got out-he just seemed to love it so much  _more_ than anyone else."  _Oh no._ She wiped her face, trying to be subtle as she did so, but she caught Six-Claws look.  
  "So what are you doing today then, Sunny?" He asked her gently. "For Clay, I mean."  
  "I'm, um, appreciating everything. The plants, the birds, the smells of food, all the-all the, uh, dragons in the sky." She felt her face burn. it had all seemed so much... _more_ in her head. "I just figured, y'know, why dwell on-why dwell on the bad of all this? Why not just appreciate everything he gave for us to have all this, and, like. I dunno. We're at peace now. We're happy. And he's not here to see it, so, um, why not appreciate it a little more once a year? For Clay, I mean?"  
  
 _All the living are dead and the dead are all living_  
  
  The older SandWing nodded at her, looking away quickly. She was grateful as she wiped her eyes.  
  "I think thats a wonderful way to celebrate today, Sunny. I think Clay would really appreciate that you're doing that for him." He paused, looking like he had more to say, then cleared his throat. "I know it may not be the time, but I thought it might be neat for you to know...some of the nomadic SandWing groups believe that when a dragon dies, he's reincanated into something else. Put back into nature, they say. So, uh, if its any comfort-" he gave a small, well-meaning chuckle, prompting a watery-eyed Sunny to smile back, "-My parents would say he's part of the nature you're appreciating, and he's doing the same. He's a flower or a tree or a plant-or a toad, even. Hes around here somewhere, though."  
  Sunny gave a sideways smile to the old dragon and gazed back out over the garden.  
  "-And, uh, I'd bet he'd maybe even be one of these trees in here. To watch over you, y'know? He seemed like a good friend like that."  
  "He was."  
  
 _The war is over and we are beginning_  
  
  Sunny breathed deeply into the sunset, looking out at the rainforest this time. She'd flown over in a frenzy, and it had taken her all evening, but she knew what she had to find.  
  She leaned against the mango sapling contentedly, watching the sun sink past the horizon. Clay had planted it when Jambu showed them how the pit was a seed, and it had sprouted into a healthy young tree over the past few years. It was beginning to get heavy with fruit for the first time. Sunny was a little sad to see another year without her brother go by, but she pondered the end of the war again.   
  And she figured that maybe, with time, dragons could start telling stories about a great hero who ended the war-and his mango tree. And she thought maybe everything would be okay if that happened, because dragons like Clay deserved that sort of legacy.

**Author's Note:**

> I know I put one verse before the chorus when it came after leave me alone its for effect


End file.
